"Let me alive my pleasures have, / All are Stoics in the grave."

At work, I use a white plastic mug pre-dating two corporate sales ago, retained by putting a rebranding sticker over the old logo. I like it a lot because of its heft and because it exactly holds two hot-water-dispenser shots, giving a nice full cup of tea. I rinse it regularly but don't wipe it out, which means the inside is as dark as black coffee. Whenever someone comments on this, I tell them, "If I've learned anything from Antiques Roadshow, it's that scrubbing off the patina cuts the value in half."

Which is totally true. Irrelevant, but true.

---L.